Last spring a couple I know in a high-tax suburb opened their return and stared at a number they had not seen in years. Their property bill alone was north of $18,000. Add state income tax and they were finally allowed to deduct far more than the old flat ceiling. Then their accountant circled a line near half a million in income and said, quietly, that one bonus could wipe most of that benefit out. That is the strange new shape of the SALT deduction in 2026. The cap is bigger. The trap around it is sharper. And the calendar still matters more than most people admit.
If you have been filing the standard deduction on autopilot since 2018, this is the year to stop and look again. The federal write-off for state and local taxes sits at $40,400 for 2026, a small step up from the $40,000 ceiling that applied in 2025, and a world away from the $10,000 lid that boxed people in for the better part of a decade. It will creep higher by about 1 percent a year through 2029. Then, unless Congress acts, it snaps back to $10,000 in 2030. That is a temporary window, not a permanent gift.
Why The 2026 SALT Deduction Actually Matters
Before the 2017 overhaul, the deduction for state and local taxes had no federal ceiling. Residents of high-tax states leaned on it hard. The cap that arrived afterward became a sore point for homeowners in coastal and certain Midwestern metros, where property bills and state income tax routinely blew past five figures. The 2025 law lifted that lid, at least for a while, and indexed it slightly. For 2026 the full amount is $40,400, available only if you itemize.
What counts? Property taxes, plus either state and local income taxes or state and local sales taxes. Not both income and sales. You pick the larger of those two add-ons, then stack property tax on top, and stop at the cap. Foreign taxes do not belong in this bucket. Neither do fees that are really service charges dressed up as taxes.
I have found that people mix this up with the mortgage interest deduction and then wonder why the math feels off. They are separate lines. SALT is the state-and-local pile. Mortgage interest is its own line, still subject to its own limits on acquisition debt. Charitable gifts sit elsewhere. Medical expenses clear a floor based on income before they help at all. The only reason to care about any of them together is the comparison against the standard deduction.
The Standard Deduction Is Still The Gate
For 2026 the standard deduction is widely expected to land near $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, with a higher figure for heads of household. You claim whichever is larger: that flat amount, or the total of your itemized breaks. SALT only helps if the whole itemized stack clears the flat amount.
Recent filing data still showed roughly nine in ten households taking the standard deduction in the years when the cap was $10,000. The higher ceiling should pull some of those households back into itemizing, especially in states with heavy property tax. It will not pull everyone. A renter in a no-income-tax state with modest charitable gifts may still be better off with the flat number. A homeowner paying $22,000 in property tax plus $15,000 in state income tax is in a different conversation.
The higher cap is only useful if your other itemized lines, stacked with SALT, beat the standard deduction. Otherwise you just paid the tax and received no federal offset.
Tax planning observation shared with clients near year-end
Perhaps the most interesting aspect is how uneven the benefit is. Upper-middle and higher earners in high-tax states capture most of it, partly because they are the ones with large property and income tax bills, and partly because the phase-out described later clips the very top. Middle-income renters often see nothing. That is not a moral judgment. It is just how the statute is built.
What The Cap Includes, And What It Does Not
A clean way to think about the pile is a short checklist. If an item is not on it, do not force it into the SALT line and hope a reviewer looks the other way.
- Real property taxes on a home you own, including a second home in many cases, subject to the overall cap
- State and local income taxes, or state and local general sales taxes, whichever you elect
- Personal property taxes that are based on value, such as some car taxes, when they qualify
- Not federal income tax, not payroll tax, not homeowners association dues, not most special assessments for new improvements
Sales-tax filers, often residents of states without a broad income tax, can use the optional tables or actual receipts. Actual receipts win only if you kept them and your spending was heavy, a car purchase being the classic example. Income-tax filers usually come out ahead once wages are solid. You cannot mix the two methods in the same year to double dip.
A Quick Map Of The Numbers
Figures shift with inflation adjustments and filing status, so treat this as a planning sketch rather than a substitute for the form instructions. Still, the shape is clear.
| Item | 2025 | 2026 | After 2029 |
| SALT cap | $40,000 | $40,400 | Reverts toward $10,000 in 2030 |
| Phase-out start (MAGI) | Near $500,000 | $505,000 | Old rules return with the low cap |
| Cap fully reduced | Roughly $600,000 | About $606,333 | Not applicable in the same way |
| Standard deduction, single | Lower prior-year figure | About $16,100 | Indexed separately |
| Standard deduction, joint | Lower prior-year figure | About $32,200 | Indexed separately |
Notice the phase-out band. It is narrow on purpose. Between roughly $505,000 and $606,333 of modified adjusted gross income, the extra SALT room shrinks. By the top of that band you are back at a $10,000 deduction, the old familiar ceiling. That compression is what planners have started calling the SALT torpedo.
Who Actually Feels The Higher Cap
Early refund patterns from the first filing season under the higher cap hinted that residents of high-tax states saw larger refunds. That is consistent with the design. If your state income tax plus property tax already exceeded $10,000, and you itemized, the new room was real money. A household that jumped from a $10,000 SALT deduction to $40,400, and sat in the 24 percent bracket, picked up something on the order of $7,000 in federal tax savings before phase-outs and interactions. Not life-changing for everyone. Not trivial either.
In my experience the people who shrug are the ones who never itemized and never will. The people who lean forward are homeowners with a jumbo property bill, partners in pass-through businesses who pay state tax on their share of profits, and dual-income couples in states that tax wages aggressively. If that sounds like your kitchen table, the rest of this is written for you.
Bunching So You Clear The Standard Deduction
Because SALT only pays off inside an itemized year, the old bunching idea is back, just with a higher hurdle. Bunching means pulling deductible payments into a single calendar year so that year clears the standard deduction by a comfortable margin, then taking the standard deduction in the quiet year that follows.
Suppose a married couple usually lands at $28,000 of itemized deductions: $18,000 of property tax, $8,000 of state income tax, and a thin charitable line. They are short of $32,200. They take the standard deduction and the extra property tax does nothing federal. If they can shift a second property installment, or a chunk of charitable giving, into the same year, they might clear $40,000 of itemized deductions, claim them, and then go quiet the next year. The two-year total can beat two years of the standard deduction.
Certified planners who work with households just under the line often point to a second property-tax payment made by December 31, but only after the jurisdiction has actually assessed the bill. You cannot prepay a tax that has not been imposed. Assessment calendars differ wildly. Some counties bill in the fall. Others split installments across spring and winter. If your lender escrows the bill, you may have almost no flexibility, because the servicer pays on its own schedule.
- Add up property tax, state income or sales tax, mortgage interest, and charitable gifts you already expect.
- Compare that total with the standard deduction for your filing status.
- If you are close, ask whether a legal prepayment or a clustered gift would push you over.
- Confirm the assessment exists before you send a property-tax check early.
- Model the following year, so you do not bunch into a year that then looks thin.
Charitable bunching pairs naturally with this. A donor-advised fund lets you contribute a lump sum in the itemizing year, take the deduction then, and grant to charities over the following years when you are back on the standard deduction. That is not a SALT trick. It is a stacking trick. SALT supplies the bulk. Charity supplies the margin.
Timing State Estimates Before New Year’s Eve
Self-employed people, landlords, and anyone with investment income often pay state tax in quarterly estimates. The federal fourth-quarter estimate is due in mid-January of the following year. State due dates vary. Here is the practical point. A state payment made on January 10 may count for your state compliance calendar and still land in the next federal tax year. A state payment made by December 31 generally lands in the current year’s SALT pile, assuming it is a payment of tax and not a deposit with some odd label.
That single date choice is one of the cleaner levers available. If you are going to itemize in 2026 and you owe a fourth-quarter state estimate, paying it in December rather than January can raise the deduction you actually use. If you will take the standard deduction anyway, paying early does nothing useful and may even create a cash-flow pinch. Match the payment to the year you itemize.
Withholding works differently from estimates, and it is worth a pause. State tax withheld from a December paycheck counts in that year. Extra withholding requested late in the year can shift dollars into 2026 without a separate estimate voucher. Just do not drain the checking account in December and then miss January bills. The deduction is only valuable if you can afford the cash.
A payment date is not a personality trait. It is a switch. December locks the deduction into this year. January pushes it into the next.
Property Tax Prepayments, With The Fine Print
Homeowners love the idea of writing the next bill early. The rule is less romantic. You generally need an assessment. A voluntary extra payment against a bill that does not exist yet can be treated as a deposit, not a tax, and deposits are not deductible until they are applied to an assessed liability. Jurisdictions also differ on whether they will even accept an early check.
Escrow adds another layer. If the loan servicer collects a monthly cushion and pays the county, your personal check may not change what gets deducted. The deductible amount is typically the tax the escrow agent actually pays to the taxing authority during the year, not the amount you sent the servicer. Pull the annual escrow statement before you assume you control the timing.
There is also a federal rule, older than the current cap, that limits the deduction for prepaid property taxes in certain situations. The short version for planning is simple. Do not invent a prepayment strategy from a blog post and mail a five-figure check on December 30 without asking the county treasurer whether an assessment is outstanding and without asking your preparer how it will be reported. I have seen both the happy version and the version that gets recharacterized. The happy version starts with a bill that already has your name on it.
The SALT Torpedo, Explained Without The Jargon Fog
Here is the part that catches people who did everything else right. For 2026, the full $40,400 deduction starts to phase out once modified adjusted gross income passes $505,000. The benefit shrinks as income rises, and it is gone, back to a $10,000 deduction, once earnings reach about $606,333. Through that band, you lose 30 cents of SALT deduction for each extra dollar of income.
That 30 percent clawback stacks on top of your ordinary marginal rate. If you are already in a bracket around 32 or 35 percent, an extra dollar inside the band can face your normal rate plus the lost deduction. Planners describe the combined bite as an artificially high rate. It is not a separate surtax printed on the form. It feels like one, because the deduction you were counting on shrinks as the income appears.
Phase-out sketch for 2026 Full $40,400 available below $505,000 MAGI Benefit shrinks by 30% of income inside the band Deduction back at $10,000 near $606,333 MAGI Width of the band: roughly $101,000
Say your household sits at $500,000 and expects a $40,000 year-end bonus, plus a Roth conversion you had penciled in for $30,000. Cross the threshold and part of the SALT deduction you already mentally spent starts to evaporate. The conversion might still be smart for lifetime tax reasons. It might also be an expensive year to do it. The only way to know is to project the year before you pull the trigger.
According to tax policy analysts who have modeled the band, the design concentrates the messiest incentives in a relatively narrow slice of upper-middle and upper income. Below the threshold, the higher cap works as advertised. Above the top of the band, you are living with the old $10,000 cap again, so the new law changes little. Inside the band, small income moves have oversized effects. That is why precise projections matter more than slogans.
Income Moves That Can Detonate The Phase-Out
Anything that raises modified adjusted gross income can push you into the band or deeper through it. The usual suspects show up in the same conversations every fall.
- Roth conversions, which add the converted amount to current-year income
- Capital gains from selling stock, a rental, or a business interest
- Bonuses, exercised stock options, and vested equity compensation
- A spouse returning to work, or a large one-time consulting payment
- Required distributions and large retirement withdrawals
None of these are automatically bad. A Roth conversion in a year when you are safely under $505,000 can be a gift to your future self. The same conversion at $540,000 can cost you SALT room you will not get back. Advisors who work near the line say they now look at conversions, gains, and bonuses as a set, not as isolated ideas. I think that habit is the whole game for this income range. Isolated decisions are how the torpedo hits.
Deferral cuts both ways. Pushing a bonus into January might save the deduction this year and inflate next year. If next year you expect a liquidity event anyway, you may have only moved the problem. Spreading gains across two years, harvesting losses to offset gains, or delaying a conversion until a lower-income year are the quieter tools. They are boring. Boring is often cheaper.
Married Filing Jointly Versus Separately
The SALT cap is not a per-person allowance you can double by filing separately in the casual way people sometimes imagine. Married filing separately has long carried its own limits, and the higher cap interacts with those rules rather than erasing them. For many couples the joint return still wins once you account for brackets, credits, and the way the phase-out is measured. For a few, especially where one spouse has very large medical expenses or a messy state situation, separate returns deserve a side-by-side comparison.
Do the comparison in software or with a preparer. Back-of-envelope guesses about separate returns have a long history of being wrong, because credits phase out differently and the standard deduction is lower on a separate return. If the only reason you are considering separate filing is to grab two full SALT caps, slow down. The statute is rarely that generous.
Pass-Through Owners And State Workarounds
After the $10,000 cap arrived, a number of states created elective entity-level taxes on partnerships and S corporations. The idea was to shift state tax to the entity, where it might be deducted in computing business income, rather than left entirely on the owner’s personal SALT line. Those workarounds are state-specific. Some require an annual election. Some change estimated payments. Some do not apply to every entity type.
The higher personal cap changes the arithmetic, it does not automatically kill the workaround. An owner whose personal state tax already fills the $40,400 cap may still want entity-level tax on additional business income. An owner well below the cap might find the workaround adds complexity for little gain. This is one of those topics where a generic article should stop short of a recommendation. The election deadlines are real, and missing one can lock you out for the year.
If you are a partner receiving a K-1, ask two questions before year-end. Did the entity elect a workaround tax? And does that election change the state withholding or composite tax already reported on your behalf? Double-counting, or missing a credit, is a common cleanup item the following spring.
Sales Tax Versus Income Tax, The Annual Choice
You elect each year. Most wage earners in income-tax states will use income tax, because withholding plus estimates dwarf the sales-tax table. The sales-tax route matters if you live in a state without an income tax, or if a one-time purchase, a boat, a vehicle, a major renovation’s sales tax, blows past what the table assumes.
Keep the receipts if you go actual. The optional table is convenient and audit-quiet. Actual expenses win only with documentation. Either way, the total still stops at $40,400 once property tax is included. A $50,000 sales-tax year does not become a $50,000 deduction.
How SALT Interacts With Other Itemized Lines
Think of itemizing as a bundle, not a single star. Mortgage interest on acquisition debt still has its own ceiling. Home-equity interest is deductible only when the loan was used to buy, build, or substantially improve the home that secures it. Charitable gifts face percentage-of-income limits that depend on the asset given and the type of charity. Medical expenses are deductible only to the extent they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income, which means a healthy year often produces a zero.
A household with a large SALT bill, a modest mortgage, and almost no charity can still itemize if SALT alone, capped, plus a little interest clears the standard deduction. A household with a small SALT bill usually needs charity or medical or interest to get there. That is why bunching charity into the high-SALT year is such a natural pair. You are not inventing deductions. You are choosing the year they land.
Itemizing test: SALT (capped) + mortgage interest + charitable gifts + deductible medical + other allowed items versus standard deductionOne interaction people forget is the alternative minimum tax. The AMT used to add back the entire state and local tax deduction, which made SALT worthless for many higher earners. AMT exposure has narrowed for a lot of households, but it has not vanished. If you exercise incentive stock options or have large miscellaneous adjustments, run the AMT alongside the regular tax before you celebrate a $40,400 deduction. A deduction that gets added back is a deduction you did not really receive.
A Year-End Calendar That Does Not Rely On Luck
October is not too early. December 30 is often too late, because assessments, payroll changes, and brokerage settlements need lead time. A practical rhythm looks like this.
- In early fall, project wages, business income, gains, and expected state tax.
- Place that projection against $505,000 and against the standard deduction.
- Decide whether 2026 is an itemizing year or a standard-deduction year.
- If itemizing, schedule deductible state payments and confirmed property tax before December 31.
- If near the phase-out, delay or shrink conversions and elective gains.
- If safely under, consider whether a conversion fits the lifetime plan.
- In January, reconcile what actually posted, because cash basis cares about dates.
Payroll departments need time to change withholding. Brokerages need time to settle sales. Counties need time to credit a payment to the right parcel. The romantic version of tax planning is a clever idea on New Year’s Eve. The version that works is a boring email in October.
Two Household Sketches
Numbers rounded, on purpose, so you can see the shape rather than copy them onto a form.
The near-miss couple. Married, combined wages $210,000, property tax $14,500, state income tax $11,000, mortgage interest $6,000, charity $1,200. Itemized total about $32,700, a hair over a $32,200 standard deduction. They itemize, but barely. A $3,000 donor-advised contribution in December turns a coin-flip into a clear itemizing year and raises the deduction they actually use. Next year they give from the fund and take the standard deduction. Over two years they are ahead of two standard deductions, provided the cash gift was money they were going to give anyway.
The phase-out household. Married, base income $490,000, property and state tax well above the cap, so they expect the full $40,400. A $40,000 bonus plus a $20,000 Roth conversion pushes modified income into the band. Part of the SALT deduction shrinks. The conversion still might be right for heir and Medicare reasons five years out. It is no longer an obvious yes for this December. Moving the conversion to a year without the bonus can preserve the deduction and still get the Roth funded. That is the torpedo in household form. Not a penalty printed in red. A quiet reduction that shows up when you compare two drafts of the return.
I prefer the second sketch as a teaching tool because it punishes optimism. People remember the $40,400 headline. They do not remember the income test sitting behind it.
Recordkeeping That Survives A Question
Large SALT deductions attract questions more often than tiny ones. You do not need a dramatic archive. You need a folder.
- County or city tax bills and proof of payment, or the escrow annual statement
- W-2 state withholding boxes and every state estimate confirmation
- The election statement if you chose sales tax and any big-ticket receipts
- A one-page note on why you paid in December rather than January
- K-1 footnotes if an entity-level tax is in the picture
Assessed value disputes belong in a different file. Challenging an assessment can lower next year’s bill, which is good for cash and sometimes bad for the deduction. Both can be true. A successful appeal is still usually worth it, because you are paying the tax with real dollars and deducting only a fraction of them.
What Changes Between Now And 2030
The cap rises about 1 percent a year through 2029. That is a nudge, not a new regime. The interesting date is 2030, when the higher cap is scheduled to expire and the $10,000 ceiling returns. Households that can legally shift a deduction into 2028 or 2029 from 2030 may want to, the same way people pulled income around other sunset dates in past tax laws. Do not build a life plan on a sunset. Congress can extend, rewrite, or ignore the date. Do notice it, the way you notice a lease ending.
Between now and then, the phase-out thresholds are also scheduled to tick up slightly. If your income is growing faster than that tick, you can drift into the band without changing jobs. A raise, a partner admission, a rental that finally cash-flows, any of those can do it. Recheck the projection every fall rather than taping last year’s answer to the monitor.
Mistakes That Quietly Waste The Cap
A few patterns show up often enough to name.
Paying January’s state estimate in January out of habit, in a year you are itemizing, and then wondering where the deduction went. Forgetting that escrow, not your monthly transfer, sets the property-tax deduction. Claiming both income tax and sales tax. Prepaying a bill the county has not assessed. Doing a large Roth conversion inside the phase-out band because a podcast said conversions are always smart. Ignoring AMT because a coworker said it was repealed. It was not repealed. It was narrowed.
Another quiet miss is failing to coordinate spouses. One spouse maxes charitable gifts in March. The other pays the property tax in December. Neither looks at the combined return until March of the next year, when bunching is no longer available. A shared note in October fixes that. It is not romantic. It works.
State Residency And The Hidden SALT Choice
Some households respond to high state tax by changing residency. That is a life decision wearing a tax costume. States audit domicile aggressively when the dollars are large. A new driver’s license is not a residency plan. Days spent, homes maintained, and where you actually live still decide the fight.
If you are already moving for work or family, the SALT cap is one input. If you are moving only for the deduction, run the full cost: property prices, income tax on the wages you will still earn, estate tax differences, and the risk of a residency audit. The federal cap makes high-tax states less painful than they were under the $10,000 lid. It does not make them free. I would rather see someone model five years of total tax than chase a single federal line.
Estimated Payments, Safe Harbors, And December Cash
Accelerating a state payment to capture SALT does not repeal the underpayment rules. Federal estimates still have safe harbors, generally based on this year’s tax or last year’s tax, with a higher prior-year percentage for higher incomes. State rules differ. A December payment can satisfy a state installment and feed the federal deduction at the same time, which is elegant when the cash is there.
It can also create a false sense that you are “paid up” federally. State tax and federal tax are different checks. Use the December payment for the job it actually does. Then look at the federal installment on its own calendar, including the mid-January date, so you do not save on one line and pay a penalty on another.
Charitable Stacking Without Losing The Plot
Because the prompt to itemize is binary, charity is the flexible filler. Cash gifts to public charities are generally deductible up to a high percentage of income. Gifts of appreciated stock can be more efficient, because you may deduct the fair market value and avoid the gain, within the applicable percentage limit. Bunching three years of gifts into the year your property tax and state tax already nearly clear the standard deduction is a classic move, and it still works under the higher SALT cap.
Qualified charitable distributions from an IRA, available at the right age, are different. They are excluded from income rather than taken as an itemized deduction. Near the SALT phase-out, keeping a distribution out of income can matter more than an itemized gift, because income itself shrinks the SALT benefit. That is a subtle ranking. Under the threshold, an itemized gift helps you clear the standard deduction. Inside the band, an exclusion that lowers MAGI can protect the SALT deduction you already have. Different tools, different floors of the building.
Investment Income And The December Gain Decision
Realizing a large capital gain in December feels clean. The position is closed, the cash is available, the story is finished. Inside the phase-out band it is also an income event that claws back SALT. Harvesting losses in the same year can offset the gain and keep MAGI down. Wash-sale rules still apply to losses, so the replacement purchase needs the required gap.
Tax-loss harvesting is not a reason to hold a bad investment, and avoiding a gain is not a reason to hold a concentrated position that keeps you up at night. The SALT interaction is a tie-breaker, not the whole investment policy. If the gain is going to happen anyway, the question is which year hurts less. A year already deep above the top of the band may be oddly fine, because the SALT deduction is already down at $10,000 and further income does not take more of it. A year sitting at $510,000 is the fragile one.
The expensive year is not always the highest-income year. Sometimes it is the year you drift across a threshold you did not know was there.
Homeowners With More Than One Property
Property tax on a second home can count toward SALT, still inside the single cap. It does not create a second cap. A vacation house with an $11,000 bill and a primary home with a $16,000 bill simply fill the bucket faster. Rental properties are different. Property tax on a rental is generally a rental expense on the schedule for that activity, not a personal SALT item. Mixing those up overstates the personal deduction and understates rental expenses, or the reverse. Keep the parcels straight.
Special assessments deserve a careful read. Amounts charged for a new sidewalk, a sewer extension, or another improvement that adds value are often added to basis rather than deducted as tax. Amounts charged for maintenance can be deductible. The bill rarely labels itself for your convenience. When the number is large, ask before you drop it on the SALT line.
A Note On Refunds And The Following Year
If you deduct state income tax and later receive a state refund, part of that refund may be taxable in the following year under the tax-benefit rule. You only pick up income to the extent the deduction actually reduced your federal tax. Households that bounce between itemizing and the standard deduction need to track this. A big 2026 SALT deduction followed by a 2027 state refund is not free money. It can be 2027 income.
That feedback loop is another reason not to overpay state estimates casually just to inflate SALT. You may deduct it now and report it later, with interest-free use of your own cash in between, which is a weak trade. Pay what you owe. Time it into the right year. Skip the theater.
How To Talk About This With A Preparer
Bring projections, not vibes. A useful November packet includes year-to-date pay stubs, a guess at bonuses, expected K-1 income, unrealized gains you might sell, property-tax due dates, and whether a conversion is on your mind. Ask for two drafts if you are near $505,000: one with the elective income, one without. The difference in federal tax is the real price of the move.
Ask specifically whether the property-tax assessment is deductible if paid early, whether the state estimate due in January can be paid in December, and whether an entity-level election is already in place. Those three answers decide more than any headline about $40,400.
Putting The Pieces Into One Decision
Strip away the noise and the 2026 choice is smaller than the commentary around it. Will you itemize? If yes, have you placed every legitimate state and local tax payment you can control into that year, up to the cap? If your income is near the phase-out, have you avoided elective income that would claw the deduction back? If you will not itemize, stop forcing payments forward and put the energy into something else.
The higher limit is real. It is also temporary, capped, and allergic to a band of income that many successful households wander into without noticing. Households that treat December as a switch, not a mood, will keep more of it. Households that remember the headline and forget the threshold will wonder, next April, why the refund looked ordinary.
There is still time for 2026. Assessments can be checked. Estimates can be moved. Conversions can wait a month or a year. The cap will not climb in a meaningful way if you miss the window, and it will not comfort you in 2030 if you assumed it was permanent. Look at the bill, look at the income, and decide which year deserves the deduction. That is the whole strategy, once the jargon falls away.
One last practical habit, the one I would actually keep if I were sitting on a property bill the size of a used car. Write the phase-out number on the same page as the tax cap. $40,400 is the opportunity. $505,000 is the tripwire. Forget either figure and the planning gets sloppy. Remember both, and the rest of the year-end moves start to sort themselves without a dramatic speech. Tax law rarely rewards drama. It rewards the person who noticed the date on the bill and the line on the income projection before the calendar turned.
